BROOKINGS — “Home for the holidays” is an apt phrase this time of year, but it’s especially true at Falcon Plastics, whose teams are finally home together again under one roof after years of separation and trekking from one side of Brookings to the other.

Falcon, a Brookings-based custom contract plastic injection and blow molder now in its third generation of family ownership, moved its corporate and sales teams in September into its facility at 3300 Prince Drive. Those personnel joined the production team there, which has been mostly based from that location since 2009-10.

“Our old corporate offices were on Western Avenue, and there were about 15 of us that worked over there,” Karissa Kopecky, marketing manager at Falcon, said in an interview with the Brookings Register. “(This will) allow us the opportunity to have a more collaborative work environment. It helps with our culture and creating a better bond (among) all of our team members. It will also help with retention and keeping our employees here when we’re in one facility and all together.”

Brain-storming sessions among employees will benefit immensely from the change, Human Resources Manager Laura Schwarz said. She added that another positive is the teams — production, corporate and sales — will now interact more frequently, helping to achieve that “unified, one Falcon family feel.” 

That’s no small feat when you’re overseeing 130 to 140 employees in Brookings alone. Companywide, around 250 workers call Falcon home and are based out of facilities in Madison, Lexington, Tenn., and Tigard, Oregon. The company also has a partnership with a facility in Suzhou, China.

“It’s been nice to be able to collaborate more with our Brookings team members and the space — we at least doubled our space, almost tripled our space, from what we had,” Kopecky said. “Bringing our team members over, I think, has really greatly improved just the overall feel and energy of our team members. It’s bright. It’s vibrant. It’s clean. It’s open. I think that helps a lot.”

Schwarz shared Kopecky’s assessment, noting that, “Things have gone very, very well. A lot of our long-term employees were used to all being under one roof.

“It’s been really fun to see everybody’s faces on a more daily basis versus weekly or monthly,” she concluded.

The benefits of being under one roof extend beyond employees — Falcon’s customers will also see pluses to the change, Kopecky noted, including longtime Brookings stalwarts Daktronics, Larson Manufacturing and 3M. How so? Well, it has everything to do with being centralized in one facility that’s in the manufacturing area of Brookings, especially when it comes to meeting with customer representatives in regard to corporate and sales aspects.

Those customers can continue to expect a time-tested relationship with Falcon, due in no small part to its family ownership. The current generation leading Falcon is the duo of President Jenn Barlund and Executive Vice President Kyle Bender, who are cousins. Jay Bender remains Falcon’s CEO, and Guy Bender is its chairman of the board.

Under one roof again, with employees thriving in a family like atmosphere, and owners who are open and visible to those employees. Of all that, it’s the family feeling that’s important to Falcon Plastics, and has been from its founding nearly 50 years ago.

“It’s so cliché to say we’re a great place to work and we have a wonderful culture, but in reality we really do,” Kopecky said. “… Every month we’re celebrating anniversaries of 30-plus years of employment at Falcon — that’s not heard of anywhere else. And that just goes back to speak to the culture of what we have here. People love it.” 

Schwarz extolled Falcon as well, noting that it goes beyond pay.

“Our benefits package is so robust … the fact that our ownership team, our senior leadership team, so believes in providing those great benefits to our employees,” she said. “Everybody loves a paycheck, right? But there’s so much more to working than just that paycheck. You want to come to work and not dread it.

“Yes, we all have to work, but I think we do have a culture where people want to come to work to see their friends, to know that it’s a safe environment and hopefully you’re going home with a bigger smile on your face than when you came,” she continued. 

And, as luck would have it, there are some job openings right now at Falcon, with some positions getting more interest than others.

“With our machine-operator positions, we are doing really well. We get applications and stuff for that,” Schwarz said. “We do right now have some really exciting opportunities as far as management goes — we are looking for a new HR manager (and) some supervisors. We have a lot of fun openings right now as well that don’t open up too often. And so (we’re) collecting applications for that.”

If you’re a technology enthusiast, Falcon might also be a good fit for you. 

“We still have a lot of technicalities to our machines as far as changing our molds and the automation side of things,” Schwarz said. “We love, love, love, love technology and all the new automation stuff out there, but getting those job-specific, skill-specific jobs has always been a trickier spot. We have some great guys here and we do get people that come in and apply and fit in well.”

Oh, and if you have little to no training? Don’t sweat it.

“We love it if you come in with a little bit of knowledge, but it doesn’t scare us if you don’t have it and you just have the willingness to try to learn it,” Schwarz said.

And if you join the Falcon family — be it in production, corporate or sales — be prepared for a, well, family like experience.

“We still do those holiday parties, the company picnic — all family orientated,” Schwarz said. “We want to get together outside of these four walls to be able to see how the kids have grown, the grandkids have grown. I think that’s so exciting to see how that’s all transpired over the years.” 

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.